Fresco detail, initiate hiding in the lap of the woman who accompanies her in the various phases of the rite. "[…] it still remains uncertain whether the subject is a woman's initiation into an Orphic or Dionysian mystery cult or rather the...

"The fresco depicts Io, left on the rocks at Canopus by the river god; here she takes the hand of Isis, who waits for her with a cobra in her left hand and a crocodile under her feet." (Caption, p. 96)

Fresco: "A young employee carding a tunic, and a second worker with a cage made of reeds on which fabric was stretched to be bleached with sulfur steam." (Caption, p. 137); "One of the liveliest shop fronts excavated in the early nineteenth century...

"In a niche at the back of the peristyle in the refined Pompeii domus that takes its name from this fresco, this portrait of the Athenian comedian Menander (end of the fourth century B.C.) was painted during the late Julio-Claudian era. The Greek...

“The large oecus (5) next to the nuptial bedchamber (4) contains the famous frieze representing the “mysteries” of the Dionysus cult that give the villa its name. The paintings here represent the initiation of a young woman into the mysteries of...